Game Review: Game #2, Pittsburgh Penguins 5 vs. Toronto Maple Leafs 2

The Maple Leafs were completely dominated by the Penguins, and the team looked as dysfunctional as it did at the end of the 2013-2014 season.

Despite a fast paced start the game, and outshooting the Penguins for the first 6:30, the Leafs spiralled badly after that, looking slow and terrified to make a mistake. Apparently, I’m not the only one that saw that.

The team didn’t appear to win a puck battle all night and backed away from contact, turned the puck over regularly, and played an overall brutal game, one was also worsened by taking a number of undisciplined penalties to sink the team even further. Lots of finger pointing is sure to happen, but the players have to look at themselves in the mirrors and take full responsibility for not showing up prepared and ready to play. They folded up shop quickly and didn’t look like they wanted back in the game at all.

If you want to know where puck possession starts and ends, this quote is a good place to start:

Stephane Robidas: “It doesn’t matter which league you’re in, if you don’t win 1-on-1 battles you’re not going to win too many games.”

Leafs give up 3-0 lead to Penguins in the 1st period and eventually succumb to a 5-2 loss at home among disgruntled fans. High fan expectations aside, all in all, Leafs did not do too badly considering our top line is recovering from injury and we just played a top East team coming off a 6-4 win against the Ducks, a strong West team. Still, we notice where improvements can be made.

About the new faces:

At times, the passes were a bit behind sometimes causing the play to breakdown. Playing with good players is important per QoT stats, but sometimes it's just about more time to gel. Occasionally, you get instant chemistry like Bozak-Polak or Bozak-Percy. Only 2 games in and Percy has been strong in both. Percy setup Bozak for 2 goals this season. Players like Bozak seem to make an effort to get on the same wave length. Bozak placed himself in front of the net where a clear passing lane from Percy exists and far enough away from the Penguin defender so that Bozak could get a clean shot off for a goal. Contrast this with some of the other lines. More about this in comment below about gridlock.

About being hemmed in:

They were caught watching the play rather than anticipating where the puck will be. They need to predict rebound plays off end boards. The Penguins D are masters at intentionally shooting the puck wide to an area where their forwards can retrieve it. Look at Crosby's goal. By the same token, for offense, Leafs could try and make plays off the end boards rather than forcing something not there.

About Leafs losing 1-on-1 battles:

After winning a 1-on-1 board battle, the player remained standing still to make a pass only to have their pocket picked right back because he remained in close proximity to the only real threat. Start skating then pass. Pass first might be a bit better for offense off the rush, but more often than not, you lose the puck again.

About Leafs penchant for gridlock

Leafs were guilty of the window kissing syndrome, too many in close proximity, a mindset that sets in after sitting in typical Toronto traffic gridlock. One of the problems in bringing in another Leaf into the scrum is it also draws an opposing checker allowing them to retake the puck. Leafs began tripping over each other. Even when we did win the puck, there was no where to skate and no one in position to receive the puck or no passing lane to our D. At one point, we saw the Penguins put four of their guys where we had three together. Why would the Penguins do this? Well the Leafs gave them the best circumstance under which a SWARM could work effectively.

The 3rd Leaf player allowed the Penguins to bring in another guy while still being close enough to check that 3rd player should the puck come out to him. If instead the 3rd Leaf player went to a scoring position with a passing lane, it would draw at least one of the Penguin checker to cover especially since they had the lead. That opens up ice in the scrum area, no longer squeezed in like sardines. Vegging out in traffic is not normal, we gotta remove gridlock from our subconsciousness.

The positives are that we are seeing better forecheck than last season.

I do not get the players are lazy or unwilling to execute the system argument... The management/coaches must strictly reward with icetime only those who are willing to buy what the coaches are selling and you would be surprised how quickly the system sinks in.

Holy melodramatic overreactions Batman!! I thought this site was supposed to have reasonable fans but after 2 losses we're firing everybody and trading our stars? I mean give them some more games (maybe like 20 or so?) before hitting the panic button.

Bold predictions: Kessel and Phaneuf end up with the Islanders by Christmas! Islanders make it to the conference final this year! Leafs finish 11th in the conference and miss out on both McDavid and Eichel!

@drummond I think Carlyle is giving the players just enough rope to hang themselves right now. He knows they are not buying into his systems so he is giving them the opportunity to do it their way so they can see it doesn't work.

@Cameron19 Not terribly sold on Couturier's potential. And I'm not sure I want to see Phil in...well...Philly. It sure is a gamble. Couturier could end up capping out at 45 points a year and the pick could be a dud. I do like the O'Reilly one though.

@Mitch92@drummond I believe it is not about Carlyle, the system is reportedly prepared by Horatchek and Shanny and Dubas want the team to play that way. In a way I believe Carlyle was sort of forced to play it that way. I mean if the Leafs fire Randy, the players will not get their say.

@Xxxxxnew The sample size these players are responsible for is 2 games. If you started a new job somewhere and your first 2 days were rough for whatever reason, would it make sense for you to be fired?

@Mcost61@vji67 Agreed and that's why I thought Carlyle should have been fired during the summer. "Doing the same thing" in this instance is his system regardless of how much he/the staff claims it's changed.

They will have to go for us to ever matter. We can beat around the bush all we want, Ferguson couldn't get the ok for a rebuild, hopefully these rich fuckers are smarter the then teachers and relize that's the only thing that can help us.

@Fish Head@Cameron19 I'm not a Dion fan, I just believe he's unjustly criticized by this fan base. If there's a trade out there for him where young players or draft picks are coming back, I'd look at them. But I suspect those kinds of deals aren't available for him.

@Cameron19@Fish Head Considering that MacT is on the hot seat I think he would go for that deal. They need help on D and it's the hometown boy coming home to help them move to the next level. We may have to take some salary back to make that happen but I think it could work.

@Xxxxxnew Last year the best regular season team (Boston) won 66% of their games. I doubt heart surgery has an expected failure of 34%. My "job" question might have been broad but heart surgery is not in the same universe of hockey as far as "jobs" go.

My original point (plainly stated) is that these are athletes and calling for their head after 2 losses in an 82 game season is beyond idiotic and irrational.